5 Customer Service Lessons from the Department of Motor Vehicles

You can learn from every situation. Whether it was an incredible service experience that makes you a raving fan or whether it is one where you’re left shaking your head.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to celebrate a milestone with my daughter. It was time for her to obtain her driver’s permit. She had finished a weeklong driver’s education course, passed the written test, obtained all of the paperwork, and we had dutifully filled out the forms.

Everything was ready.

Now it was time for us to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), get her picture taken, and obtain the permit. I knew it would take time. That’s the nature of the DMV. I figured an hour to an hour and a half max.

Instead, we quickly realized that getting the permit was going to be about as difficult as Frodo making it safely to Mordor.

All of us have had the same shared, miserable experience at the DMV. In every state I’ve lived in, it’s the same. We just forget, don’t we? We finally get what we need, and then we hope that we never have to go back.

Our experience was even worse than what I recalled from before. Nearly five hours later, we finally emerged with the permit. All of the waiting for just five minutes at the counter.

We were exhausted, but we also were laughing. That’s what we do when we are beyond frustrated. Jim Rohn used to say, “Learn to turn frustration into fascination.” When I’m terribly frustrated, I try to heed his advice.

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Learn to turn frustration into fascination. -Jim Rohn

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Here’s what I jotted down in my notes during that first hour:

I’m fascinated:

That this operation is so inefficient.
That no one has redone this entire system.
That we blindly put up with it because we feel powerless.
That leaders haven’t emerged to fix it.
That they aren’t listening to suggestions for change.

After two hours, I was no longer fascinated. That’s when I go to my second step. I look for customer service or leadership lessons. That worked for the next hour.

What business lessons can we learn from the DMV?

From my notes:

Set expectations.

At the DMV, they don’t give an estimated time until you will be served. Failing to set expectations leads to disappointment.

Lesson: Whether running a business or serving on a team, it’s important to set expectations—and then keep them.

9 C’s of Lincoln’s Leadership

Photo by netdance on flickr.

When it was in the theatres, I watched the extraordinary movie Lincoln. Rarely do I watch a movie a second time, but I’m such an admirer of President Lincoln that I couldn’t wait for its video release. My family watched it last weekend. To me, the acting is so perfect that I feel like I am truly watching Lincoln himself.

There are thousands of articles and books about Lincoln. As I watched the movie, I noted some of his attributes for achieving his goals. The movie was primarily focused on Lincoln’s goal to pass the Thirteenth Amendment. Throughout the fight in the House of Representatives, Lincoln was:

1. Committed. He was willing to risk his reputation to do what was right.

2. Clever. How he won votes in the House of Representatives is part of the story that intrigues me.

3. Calm. In the midst of incomprehensible stress, Abraham Lincoln was calm. He would tell a story, a joke, or quietly sit by himself.

4. Compromising. He didn’t compromise his values, but he understood the political necessities and how to negotiate in order to achieve the best possible outcome.

Lead With Friendship (Bread)

When we first moved to Nashville, someone gave us a “starter” for Amish Friendship Bread.

It looked like a Ziplock bag of liquid glue. It came with instructions. It was the “starter” for Friendship Bread. Follow the instructions and mix in other ingredients, and you will end up with magnificent dessert-like bread.

We loved it.

And my wife loves to bake, too.

When you bake this bread, you end up with more of the “starter” mixture. It seemed to be a mixture of yeast, flour and sugar. Before long, my wife was baking this bread as if our kitchen was a commercial bakery.

If you visited our house to change the locks, you walked out with Friendship Bread. Same for the plumber, the handyman, the electrician and the alarm salesman. Basically, if you walked within one hundred yards of our house, you were going home with Friendship Bread.

Still, it kept growing. Our kitchen counters were literally overflowing with this stuff.

Until, one day, we had enough. My wife gave all the starters away, and we were finished.

(I’m not sure how much weight I gained during this period, but it was worth it.)

Friendship Bread really was named perfectly. It was a great gift, a good conversation starter, and who wouldn’t immediately like someone giving them homemade bread?

The experience is a good lesson for leaders:

Leaders Give With No Expectation of Anything in Return

Innate Leadership: It’s Already Inside

Image courtesy of istockphoto/chromatika

Robert Murray is an author, speaker, executive, chairman, advisor, and associate professor. His book It’s Already Inside: Nurturing Your Innate Leadership for Business and Life Success is a terrific blend of storytelling, personal experience and wise counsel that will make you laugh, cry and learn.

I recently had the opportunity to ask Bob a few questions about a wide range of topics.

Cultivate Your Inner Leader

Bob, let’s start with the title. It’s Already Inside gives us a glimpse into your philosophy. You believe that leadership is innate, that everyone has the DNA to lead. How did you develop your philosophy?

Good question. I believe that over the years we have evolved with many characteristics that have helped human beings become who we are (the good and the bad!). Buried in the soup we call our DNA are so many lessons that have enabled us to grow, innovate and thrive. Leadership is one of those traits. Some don’t know it or have had their confidence and competence squelched by the conditioning of their parents, teachers, coaches, society, etc.

Leadership is not always about being the loudest, most charismatic or the most extroverted in the room. Leadership comes in all shapes, sizes and conditions. There are the traditional leaders that we are used to seeing in business and society. However, there are many leaders that silently toil away in organizations and use their abilities to influence decisions—or those that bolt from the office at 5:00 and go into the community to lead scout groups, volunteer organizations or little league teams. They are moms and dads that lead their families, their neighborhood and the local school PTA.

Work Harder Than Anyone Else

Terry Fox is the famous one-legged runner who inspired millions. You grew up with him and watched his struggle against cancer and his response. Watching him taught you some powerful lessons. For those of us who only watched or read about him, give us an inside view of what he was like.

Terry was the most determined and dedicated person I have ever met. His energy was infectious, and he inspired everyone around him to be their best too. You just couldn’t help digging deeper and working harder from his influence.

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A man who does not think and plan ahead will find trouble right at his door. -Confucius

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We’re often temporarily moved and motivated when we hear a story like Terry’s. But, how do you take Terry’s incredible attitude and let it really grab you and change you for good? What’s your best advice on cultivating such a daily attitude?

What I learned from Terry is forever imbedded in me as the person and the leader I am today. However, on those dark and cold days when I wake up with the feeling of, “Oh crap, I just don’t have it in me today,” I think of how Terry dragged himself out of a warm bed every day at 4 in the morning and faced the fight head-on. Then I start moving and I get my head back into the game.

Terry was proof to me that everything in life that you truly want is gained through working harder than anyone else and having the discipline to stay on the road less traveled.

The Challenge of Trusting Leadership

Exclamation point shaped cloud in a bright blue sky.

Photo courtesy of istockphoto/aleishaknight

What’s really in the way of your success in leading others?

When others see you lead, do they see the real you?

Are you living your passion and living it with authenticity?

Do you lead transparently?

Are you as good as your word?

Scott Weiss is President and CEO of Speakeasy, Inc., a global communication consulting firm. His book Dare: Accepting the Challenge of Trusting Leadership will be released April 2, 2013. Dare is a challenge to leaders everywhere to be authentic, to understand your style, and to embrace your true inner self.

Scott, you start the book with a rather negative view of today’s leaders. Chapter 1 is titled “A Crisis of Trust.” You say that everywhere you look, you see signs of a systemic leadership problem. You cite studies showing our trust in institutions has been declining for forty years. You even label the Gen X and Gen Y youth as “Jaded Generations.” How did we get here and how is this impacting today’s up-and-coming leaders?

I don’t know how trust got such a bad reputation, but we’re here, and we have to do something about it. There’s no one reason why, but I think it’s fair to say that nobody has stood up and said, “ENOUGH!” It’s become too easy to look the other way, to say “good enough.”

The crisis of trust in this country is especially important to today’s youth. There was a time in my life when I could trust teachers, coaches, clergymen and executives. I experienced it firsthand. The younger generations have no foundation of trust from which to build, learn or be inspired, so their default position is a lack of trust. That’s a huge problem.

What led you to write Dare?

I’ve been repeatedly inspired by executives who take the dare in their own way. I have witnessed miraculous results from leaders who dare to adopt honesty as a business strategy. Seeing it work motivated me to want to broaden the reach of the message and to do the same for others.

In the book I chronicle a situation where a senior executive was talking about an issue with compensation at his company’s annual meeting. Rather than search for some deceptive way to deliver the news, he admitted to making a mistake and he vowed to make it right. That seven-minute conversation literally changed the course of the company forever. Why? Because he allowed himself to be vulnerable, transparent and empathetic. These are core principles we teach to every person who attends a Speakeasy course, which he did, and they’re at the heart of authenticity.